WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en
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Today, due to a scheduled conflict, therefore I
will be the moderator. And let me first introduce
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our speaker. She is a Professor and Chair of the
Social Work Department at the National Taiwan
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University. She got both her MSW and Ph.D. degrees
at Columbia University School of Social Work. Dr.
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Yang has specialized in gerontology since her
early days in social work. She has published
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widely in various journal outlets and her recent
research topics include productive aging care and
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work, dementia care, long-term care, and aging
parents of intellectually challenge people.
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She also sits on many government committees on
senior social welfare or long-term care. Dr.
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Yan is also very active in developing innovative
programs of elder care and services. She teaches
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courses on social gerontology, community resource
management, research methods, and aging social
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policies in Asian countries. She has won NT
Awards in teaching service-learning courses.
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A quick reminder before I turn the floor to our
speaker. We welcome the audience to post their
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questions in the Q&A box and I'll collect and
deliver them to Dr. Yang during the Q&A session.
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Now it's my great pleasure to yield the
floor to Dr. Yang. Dr. Yang, please.
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Thank you, Dr. Dai. It is my great honor
and pleasure to be here today presenting
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my research and the Taiwan conditions uh
replacing super age society today at UCLA
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Asia Pacific Center my topic today is Taiwan as a
super Aid Society challenges and policy responses
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First I'd like to, I got some questions from you
before the webinar and I'll try to answer them and
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add a little more information. First, I'd like
to give a brief introduction to the aging world
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and Aging Asia. As you know, aging is a global
issue I'd like to point out here the importance
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of increasing the very old starting from the age
of 80. The number of persons aged 80 years...
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For a quick Interruption could
you share your screen with us?
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Yes, sorry. Thank you.
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Okay, can you see my screen now? Okay sorry
about that. The number of persons aged 80
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years or over is projected to triple from 143
million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050. So my
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research in the past years has been focused on
following the development of people over the
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age of 80 or even 85 and I studied Taiwan
centenarians about 10 to 12 years ago.
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We all know that the life expectancy
globally has been increasing but
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in different regions of the world. The
development and the speed of the aging
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process are different. For example, when we talk
about Asia normally, it's close to the global
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average as we can see the green triangle line
and lately the aging speed has been increasing.
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Fertility is the key issue and that affects the
speed of our aging society. As we can see for
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the world we can divide all of the countries into
three major groups: high fertility, intermediate
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fertility, and below-replacement fertility. When
we talk about Taiwan today uh I'd like to share
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that we are at the bottom of the bar we are close
to number one lowest below replacement fertility.
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The replacement fertility rate, as United
Nations pointed out, is 2.1 births per woman.
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For the world, the fertility rate is steadily
decreasing, but as we can see for the more
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developed regions because they have studied the
aging or aged societies many years ago so they
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started to really heighten the awareness of the
population risks to the whole countrymen. So as
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we can see with many policy responses in the
more developed regions, the fertility rate has
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been increasing since 2015. But we can see the Red
Dot. That's Asia and we started in the 1950s, 60s
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from a very high fertility group. Now all the way
and still continue to drop to below the fertility
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replacement fertility rate. And as we will see
the situation in Taiwan is even worse than 1.9.
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In the United States as well as in Taiwan,
the definition of the age is people over 65
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but for now, the United Nations still uh keeps
the definition of the Aged on age 60 in the past.
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This is a slide that we can see population by
broad age groups and when we talk about aging
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in Asia, I'll compare the global picture
with the Asia picture. As we can see the
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major difference is the decrease in Asia
of population in the group of 25 to 64,
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that's our major labor force, and also the steep
slope of the group for people from birth to 14.
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That's what we talked about fertility rate. These
two are sharply contrasted between the world
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trends and the Asian trends that will create
a major challenge for the population aging.
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Besides, Asia has a fast-growing aging
population and we will see in different
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regions, different sub-regions in Asia the
development is a bit different. The green line,
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that's Western Asia. We still have
the...we have the highest line and overall,
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we have others like Southern Asia or South Eastern
Asia still below the average. So the population,
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the Aging population, pressure is less
for uh for these two sub-regions in Asia.
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We need to alert the world that when we talk
about global aging, Asia's elderly population,
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is the largest in the world and the composition
will greatly affect the whole economy of the
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world as well as population change. For example,
migration. Okay, previously in 2017 statistics,
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the share of persons aged 60 and over in the
world in Asia has already composed 57% of the
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total aged population in the world. And the
trend has been steady until now. So how is the
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world going to face the challenge of the Aged
population in Asia? And the crossover effect
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into the whole world, I think that's something
not only Asian countries need to deal with but
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I think like a research institute such as UCLA
Asia Pacific Center and other universities and
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other even government agencies and
institutions need to pay attention to.
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So of course, we can imagine that related
to the vastly increasing aging population,
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the old age dependency ratio is also going up.
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When we talk about aging or age deities in Asia,
we always like to talk about living arrangements
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because family support has been throughout our
past history. Thousands of years ago, the family
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has been the major support system for other people
but as we can see, the second group, that's Asia.
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The second group from the left, that's Asia. We
can still see the light green parts is elderly
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people living with children. Okay, and that's
still the highest in all of the groups because
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we can compare it with the European column
and the Northern American column. The light
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green parts are rather small but in Asia until
2010, we still have over 60 percent of older
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people living with their children and that's
that that's gonna change really, really fast.
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Changes also happen in traditional
support, and family support structure,
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due to the modernization of Asian societies. First
of all, we talked about a low fertility rate but
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that translates into fewer children for familiar
support in Taiwan, the average number of people in
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one household has been decreasing rather fast.
Many households have only one single residence
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and also we have very high education levels for
both men and women, especially for the younger
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generation right now, women's education level
seems to supersede men's education level. Okay,
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so that also affects the female labor
force participation, and on the other
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side when most women go to the labor force,
and then that means the caregiver originally
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shared by women in the family, the caregiver
number in the family has been decreasing.
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With a population aging another important
phenomenon is the feminization of aging.
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For the world, we can see over the age of
60, for every 100 women we have 85 men,
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but for people over the age of 80 every
100 women, there are only 64 men. Okay,
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so we can see the older group we are talking
about a higher percentage of women in that group.
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In labor force participation globally
for people over the age of 60,
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we only have 24% of women in the labor
force compared to 47% of older men. Okay,
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so this is something that we need to... I've
been really focusing on Taiwan trying to promote,
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as Dr. Dai had introduced me at the beginning,
I've been trying to promote productive aging,
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especially for women. Okay, and we are trying
different strategies not only to focus on older
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women but we have to start much earlier. For
example, how to get those women who left the
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labor force and stayed home to take care of
their kids while they were young like under
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the age of 12. Maybe we need stronger strategies
to get those women, those mothers, out of their
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households and into the labor force when all
their children have grown beyond the age of 12.
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As we showed you in the graph earlier, Eastern
Asia we faced the increasing trend of an aging
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population, but as we can see the labor force
participation is highest for Southeastern Asia.
00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:19.800
Okay that's that is because the older people
need to work to make a living in those areas.
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But for Eastern Asia, when the average income
for older people is higher, they would choose
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other lifestyles such as more like more leisure,
or other things like focusing on physical health
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or doing other things that they would like to
do for society. So labor for in terms of labor
00:16:47.220 --> 00:16:56.040
force participation rate. That seems to be low.
Okay, so is this something that we would rather
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change? And that's a good question for all
the countries too to discuss now. I'm going to
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get into population aging in Taiwan. It's really
fast. We have tried many policy interventions but
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they didn't seem to have good effects. Okay, as
of the end of 2018, life expectancy was already
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80.69 with females even higher at 84.05 um but
for the year 2022, I guess COVID-19 probably was
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one of the major reasons that affect our
life. Expectancy dropped about 0.5 years
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and right now we have over 3.6 million older
people and the three major counties with the
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highest aged population. The oldest county
is Japan and England and those two are what
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we called the southern counties and the
rural counties but the number three county
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and the city with the highest age population?
Taipei City is a high population density city
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on top of the high rate of the older population
which means we already have close to 480,
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000 Elders. Okay, so every year we have a lot of
policy debates in Taipei City, for example, should
00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:16.920
we provide living subsidies to all other people
or should we just design categorical or mistreated
00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:27.240
policies so that will continue to be policy
debates in metropolitan areas like capacity.
00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:38.940
Okay, I have put a link in my slide but due
to the time limit, I'm not going to show. So
00:19:38.940 --> 00:19:49.140
this is the population pyramid for the year
2022. Already we can see the shape is not
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what we are so commonly called the population
pyramid. Okay, it's not the pyramid anymore.
00:19:56.040 --> 00:20:07.380
Now we have a middle-aged person with a big
belly but as we move forward we will be even
00:20:09.120 --> 00:20:18.600
distorted towards the top. Then in the year
2050, we'll see our pattern is really small,
00:20:18.600 --> 00:20:30.960
even like a reversed pyramid. Then that's
really a big problem. We can fall anytime
00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:41.940
and in the year 2020, we already see the crossover
between the first birth rate and the death rate.
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:53.040
And after 2020, uh the death rate will continue to
increase. Until now, our birth rate is still very,
00:20:53.040 --> 00:21:09.780
very, very, very low. So that means we have more
people dead than at birth, right? So if we deduct
00:21:09.780 --> 00:21:18.360
the two numbers then that means our population
is shrinking. We have already passed the stage
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where we have a lot of population surplus. Okay,
now we have to deal with the population decrease.
00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:44.220
So why can't we raise or increase our fertility
rate effectively? There's a population reason.
00:21:44.220 --> 00:21:55.680
As we can see the fertility age of women has been
uh declining rather fast in Taiwan. Now it's the
00:21:55.680 --> 00:22:09.000
year 2023. It's right here we have already passed
for the past 20 years. The fertility aged women,
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the number has been decreasing but we can still
see we have a group of age 40 to 49 this group
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:31.020
of women still contributing to birth. Okay, as
we have heard, for example, some famous stars
00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:41.340
like movie stars or models, etc. give birth.
Okay, so they are not single cases. They are
00:22:41.340 --> 00:22:49.620
actually good examples of this group of women
still contributing to birth. Okay, but now this
00:22:49.620 --> 00:23:00.420
group also has been decreasing and the youngest
one from 15 to 29 because they have delayed
00:23:00.420 --> 00:23:09.360
marriage or they don't get married. And so the
birth that they are contributing is less and less.
00:23:12.120 --> 00:23:16.560
Okay, now we go into the section on challenges,
00:23:17.460 --> 00:23:25.320
I'll share the challenges with the
system perspective from micro to macro.
00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:34.380
In microsystems we need to think about all the
individuals how do we age, how do we proceed
00:23:34.380 --> 00:23:42.660
from one life stage for example from a very
productive working age to retirement? Okay,
00:23:42.660 --> 00:23:52.500
how do we proceed from One Life Stage or one
family stage to the next? And I Advocate that
00:23:52.500 --> 00:24:02.280
all individuals need to have a life plan all the
way to 100 years and over. Okay because the number
00:24:02.280 --> 00:24:11.940
of centenarians for example in Taiwan has tripled
over the past 20 years and because the number is
00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:21.060
still rather small like close to 5000 centenarians
in the total population of Taiwan so people tend
00:24:21.060 --> 00:24:28.740
not to pay so much attention to the super. Oh, so
we don't have any plan every time I ask people how
00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:37.440
old do you want to live up to? People would say
oh maybe 80 and plus if I don't if I develop some
00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:45.360
debilitating conditions then I'd rather not live
but that's not gonna happen, okay? Life is control
00:24:45.360 --> 00:24:54.600
by God not by people so mostly so we need to
really prepare ourselves to have a complete plan
00:24:54.600 --> 00:25:05.520
throughout the whole life cycle all the way up
to the life even past 100 years old. Okay, so our
00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:14.160
life plan needs to include elements like how do we
become how do we prepare to become a centenarian
00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:24.360
or how do we strengthen our family support.
Until today we still have about 90% almost all
00:25:24.360 --> 00:25:32.760
about 97% of older adults have children but as I
mentioned this condition has changed drastically.
00:25:35.400 --> 00:25:43.800
In the metal systems, Taiwan has a great
history of Community Development it has
00:25:43.800 --> 00:25:53.700
been a policy priority since 1960s but now we
need to face the challenge how we transform the
00:25:53.700 --> 00:26:01.980
model of Community Development from a heavily
economic model to a more ecological paradigm
00:26:02.820 --> 00:26:13.140
including social inclusion, environment
sustainability, etc. so when we talk about
00:26:13.140 --> 00:26:21.000
the challenges in metal system for example we
need to discuss how to integrate and manage the
00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:30.960
various resources: economic, social-political,
agricultural, cultural, etc in the community
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:40.560
and the number two example how do we protect the
diversity and the sustainability in the community,
00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:51.420
especially in rural or remote countries areas
when younger people tend to migrate to urban areas
00:26:52.920 --> 00:27:02.220
for the macro systems? The major issue is the
decline in labor supply as we have reached the
00:27:02.220 --> 00:27:11.700
stage of population decrease that may have
an impact potentially to reduce the decline
00:27:11.700 --> 00:27:19.200
in economic growth. Okay, especially we don't see
it now because Taiwan has been relying heavily on
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:40.080
the semiconductive industry. Okay
yeah and for the aged society,
00:27:40.980 --> 00:27:49.200
the nation will face a great burden on Health
and Social care and also because of the policy
00:27:52.740 --> 00:28:07.080
paths with countries when we talk about policies
dealing with the Aging or age population. They may
00:28:07.080 --> 00:28:17.040
easily cause intergenerational gaps and conflicts.
Okay and then in dealing with that unfortunately
00:28:18.540 --> 00:28:23.460
Nations tend to have a very slow process
to make Innovative legislation changes.
00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:35.220
When we talk about the different speeds of
population aging in the sub-regions of Asia,
00:28:35.220 --> 00:28:45.840
I open focus on international cooperation
as a borderless development but we also have
00:28:45.840 --> 00:28:54.780
international competition when each nation-state
is trying hard to protect its internal population
00:28:54.780 --> 00:29:05.820
and the labor force. Okay, so these two, how can
we really have a peaceful development trend in
00:29:05.820 --> 00:29:16.140
the Asian big region and the sub-regions in Asia?
I think that's gonna effect and maybe decide how
00:29:16.140 --> 00:29:23.340
the Asian countries deal with our aging or age
the population and of course, the greatest war or
00:29:23.340 --> 00:29:33.300
the greatest risk lately is the discussion about
how to keep peace in the region and I strongly
00:29:33.300 --> 00:29:44.400
believe that in order to make all our discussions
like today with any meaning at all we do need a
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:55.500
peaceful uh environment in the world and then now
I'm going to talk about current policy highlights
00:29:57.180 --> 00:30:04.740
for the legislation and the policy we have
the elderly Welfare Law fairly recently
00:30:06.300 --> 00:30:14.880
revised and we have the long-term care
plan 1.0 in 2007 and 10 years later 2017,
00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:22.320
we had the 2.0 that's the major long-term
care policy in Taiwan and we have the white
00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:32.400
paper on AIDS Society policies revised in 2021.
Four goals in the white paper include autonomy,
00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:37.440
Independence, social inclusion, and
the sustainability for older population
00:30:41.220 --> 00:30:50.040
following the policy highlights. We have a few
practice highlights to share with you. The number
00:30:50.040 --> 00:30:59.460
one is health promotion we really advocate for
integrated Body, Mind, and spiritual activities
00:30:59.460 --> 00:31:08.160
and our government has spent lots of effort to
highlight the importance of nutrition using my
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:18.060
meal plate. We have apps, we have videos, Etc and
we focus on telling medicine and Telecare because
00:31:18.060 --> 00:31:28.560
Taiwan is a technology country and my role as
a social work researcher is the professor. My
00:31:28.560 --> 00:31:36.720
role in the multi-uh disciplinary team is open to
focusing on building the digital infrastructure
00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:44.880
and the social culture in the population,
and daily life. Okay, and this is the...
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:58.260
I think I'm running short of time so I'm not
going to share the website of this company it's
00:31:58.260 --> 00:32:09.240
called the Jubal. I started this company, a care
information system company and now it covers about
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:19.740
one-third of the long-term care institutions
in Taiwan. This company was started up by a
00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:28.740
multi-disciplinary research team at National
Taiwan University and I was... when our primary
00:32:30.900 --> 00:32:39.600
researcher uh left the university to
launch this startup company I was the
00:32:39.600 --> 00:32:45.900
head of the multi-disciplinary research
team for two years and now we are still
00:32:45.900 --> 00:32:53.940
working part to promote this company. It
has already branches in North America,
00:32:53.940 --> 00:33:02.280
actually in California and Canada, and Japan, and
recently we established an office in Singapore.
00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:13.620
And this is another highlight we very much
emphasize in Taiwan. It's the patient autonomy
00:33:13.620 --> 00:33:24.300
act that we established this act in 2015. It
was the first day in Asia and this has this
00:33:24.300 --> 00:33:31.440
is the follow-up of years of efforts
in promoting hospice palliative care.
00:33:32.580 --> 00:33:45.420
And we do have a hospice palliative act in Taiwan
as you can see in the left photo, this lady in a
00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:57.240
dark suit she's the mother of our Taiwan hospice
palliative care Dr. Chantel and the right photo
00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:06.720
because I just completed a three-year project of
National Power University Social Responsibility
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:14.220
Project and my focus was also how we can live a
peaceful life and experience of a peaceful death
00:34:15.780 --> 00:34:25.500
and long-term care 2.0 is the heart issue
in Taiwan right now and we also spend a
00:34:25.500 --> 00:34:33.300
lot of efforts promoting social inclusion of
elderly people encouraging them to do volunteer
00:34:35.100 --> 00:34:41.820
them and also encourage intergenerational
social enterprise startup companies. And
00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:51.960
we also use this intergenerational approach
to hire young athletes to be elderly health
00:34:51.960 --> 00:35:00.900
coaches this is an exercise group in a hot
spring in Taitong in the East part of Taiwan
00:35:02.460 --> 00:35:10.080
and recently we hope we focus very much on
community sustainability and we've learned
00:35:10.080 --> 00:35:19.020
very much from the Japan experience because they
have much more experiences dealing with age,
00:35:19.020 --> 00:35:28.080
satiety than Taiwan so Taiwan has really
considered Japan as a wonderful experience
00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:36.420
bank. We followed Japan's Footsteps
in promoting Regional revitalization.
00:35:37.560 --> 00:35:51.060
Okay, we have a major government institution
promoting Regional revitalization.
00:35:52.140 --> 00:36:00.060
Okay, my final takeaway point for all the
audience today is super age society requires
00:36:00.060 --> 00:36:08.220
transformative changes as the UN alerted all
the nations years ago that we cannot follow
00:36:08.220 --> 00:36:19.200
the Old Paths that are not gonna be good enough
for such a fastly increasing aging population.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:25.980
And when we do change, when we talk
about transformative changes Innovation
00:36:25.980 --> 00:36:31.500
is the key. But Innovation is rooted in the
understanding of the super old as well as
00:36:31.500 --> 00:36:37.980
their environment meaning we have to understand
individuals, families, communities, societies,
00:36:37.980 --> 00:36:44.460
nations as well as the global world. Helen
has been learning from the world such as
00:36:44.460 --> 00:36:51.360
North American, and European countries, as well
as Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea
00:36:53.580 --> 00:37:03.600
while we face challenges of the super-aged society
uh but Asia Pacific nations have a lot to share
00:37:03.600 --> 00:37:13.440
with each other because we have different speed
of population aging and we are in different stages
00:37:13.440 --> 00:37:23.220
of economic development and we have different
strong Industries so I believe that we have a
00:37:23.220 --> 00:37:30.300
lot to share with each other in order to promote
mutual prosperity and also we can deal with aging
00:37:30.300 --> 00:37:38.280
population together. Now, Taiwan has set up
multifaceted policies and strategies and we are
00:37:38.280 --> 00:37:48.720
very serious about implementing our strategies and
options. I believe that we are ready to share some
00:37:48.720 --> 00:37:59.100
of our experiences and thoughts with the world
while we enter the super-aged society in 2026.
00:37:59.700 --> 00:38:08.400
Thank you very much this is my photo taken in
the year 2011. Well, I did my Taiwan centenarian
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:16.020
studies, this beautiful lady doesn't look like
a centenarian, right? Okay, thank you very much.
00:38:19.320 --> 00:38:23.880
Thank you Pei-shan Young for your great
presentation. And since there are many
00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:29.040
insights and thoughts for our audiences
to digest, please allow me to use the
00:38:29.040 --> 00:38:33.840
privilege as the moderator to first
propose a few questions. Meanwhile,
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:39.300
for our audiences, if you have any
questions please post them in the Q&A box.
00:38:40.320 --> 00:38:49.980
So my first question is a general one because
whenever thinking about the issue of a super-aged
00:38:49.980 --> 00:38:57.900
society I'm thinking about whether Taiwan or Asia
in general is the special case so and I'm also
00:38:57.900 --> 00:39:04.620
thinking about the trajectory of a super-aged
society so I'm just curious is the trending of
00:39:04.620 --> 00:39:14.460
a super-aged society irreversible, unstoppable or
it could actually be reversed to to some extent?
00:39:16.080 --> 00:39:21.480
Well, all countries in the world
eventually become super-aged societies
00:39:22.920 --> 00:39:29.220
and in your presentation, you talk about a
lot of policies dealing with long-term care
00:39:30.180 --> 00:39:37.500
but my second question has to do with the fact
that the issue of an aging society is not just
00:39:37.500 --> 00:39:44.460
about long-term care but also the potential
shortage of labor supply. So in this sense
00:39:44.460 --> 00:39:51.600
could you tell us more about what policies the
Taiwanese government has adapted to deal with
00:39:51.600 --> 00:39:56.760
the short to deal with a labor shortage
that is caused by an aging population?
00:39:58.200 --> 00:40:05.040
Thank you, okay. Thank you Dr Dai
for your questions. I'd like to
00:40:05.640 --> 00:40:11.400
just briefly answer just share some
of my thoughts in terms of the trend
00:40:11.400 --> 00:40:19.620
of super-aged societies I think of course
human beings control our-may control our
00:40:20.640 --> 00:40:30.660
future. Okay, so I will not say it's an
irreversible trend but for now, especially in the
00:40:30.660 --> 00:40:40.620
case of Taiwan, I think we are very special in the
rest of the special case reads in the extreme law.
00:40:40.620 --> 00:40:56.040
Fertility and the population are something that we
cannot reverse. For example, we only had 139,000
00:41:02.040 --> 00:41:08.760
babies born in the year 2022 and we could not
reverse that calendar to have more babies in
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:16.320
the year 2022. And as we have fewer birth we
have fewer and fewer fertility-aged women. Then
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:25.980
it's even harder to boost fertility. So for now I
don't see a dramatic change because we are below
00:41:25.980 --> 00:41:36.240
the fertility rate of 1.0. It's already like a
0.9 or 0.89 so it's very difficult to jump back
00:41:36.240 --> 00:41:47.700
to 2.1 the replacement rate. So for now I don't
see the trend with any possibility of reverse
00:41:48.540 --> 00:41:57.480
but for the global world because we still have
the nations with higher fertility rate if we
00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:03.960
can consider the whole world as one global
village, I think that's easier to reverse
00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:12.240
the aging trend but if we still focus on each
nation individually, I think many nations will
00:42:12.240 --> 00:42:21.780
face the the great challenges of population
graying or aging in terms of long-term care
00:42:21.780 --> 00:42:28.200
adapter like. You are absolutely right the major
challenge is the shortage of labor supply. Okay,
00:42:28.200 --> 00:42:40.920
for now, Taiwan has applied the policy of free
pre-labor Supply from the... we use the labor
00:42:40.920 --> 00:42:49.740
supply from Southeastern countries, especially
like Indonesia or Vietnam, and Thailand.
00:42:50.460 --> 00:43:03.840
But as the economy has been booming in these
countries we are facing more and more difficulty
00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:15.660
in getting migrant workers. As the major supply of
our caregivers. Okay, so the Taiwan government has
00:43:15.660 --> 00:43:24.360
been trying to loosen up the control the border
control. For example, we use the case of COVID.
00:43:25.140 --> 00:43:38.520
Now the government has released a new policy to
give them to what's the word to not find a major
00:43:38.520 --> 00:43:48.780
amount for those escaped migrant workers.
Okay, we have about 80,000 escaped migrant
00:43:50.220 --> 00:43:59.940
workers in the black market. So the government
used the situation of COVID to encourage those
00:43:59.940 --> 00:44:06.720
escape to workers to come out and they will
not get a major fan, they will only get just
00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:18.120
a symbolic fight of two thousand eighty dollars
that's about 70 dollars U.S. So they will be free
00:44:18.120 --> 00:44:26.580
of the charge or agree of punishment. Okay, so
hopefully we can encourage those workers to come
00:44:26.580 --> 00:44:37.020
out and really get into the normal labor market
but still, I believe that the Taiwan government
00:44:37.020 --> 00:44:47.040
has been seriously thinking about our migration
policies because over the past decades, we kind of
00:44:48.300 --> 00:44:59.760
targeted certain groups of people rather using a
free migration policy, so I think that's something
00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:07.980
that the government needs to think about and
also since Taiwan is a technology country,
00:45:07.980 --> 00:45:16.860
we try very hard to use our strengths. Okay, for
example in my own research, I have been working
00:45:16.860 --> 00:45:28.020
with my Ph.D. students in designing social robots.
Okay, so we hope to engage and apply social robots
00:45:28.020 --> 00:45:37.740
in the care industry and hopefully besides the
information system that we use for management and
00:45:37.740 --> 00:45:48.180
case follow-ups but now we try to incorporate
social robots and even we try to build a
00:45:48.180 --> 00:45:57.480
technology development Development Center in the
local communities. That's my recent project so
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:04.800
we try to use our strength in technology,
to compensate for our shortage of labor.
00:46:07.140 --> 00:46:10.740
Thank you, thank you, Dr. Yang, for
these great responses and we have got
00:46:10.740 --> 00:46:17.220
we've got a lot of great questions from the
audiences. Let me post them to you so could
00:46:17.220 --> 00:46:24.060
you explain the correlation between the
decreasing birth rates and the current
00:46:24.060 --> 00:46:33.060
Taiwanese working class opinion towards
embracing children. Okay, I often speak to,
00:46:33.060 --> 00:46:41.700
I often like to chat not speak chat with my
young students in college and the postgraduate.
00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:54.420
Sometimes, sometimes before we forget life
is long if we only focus on the hardship
00:46:55.860 --> 00:47:01.980
right in front of our face. Okay, when when
they are in college or when they just get
00:47:01.980 --> 00:47:12.240
out of college of course their income is lower,
but they have a long working life maybe 30 or 40
00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:22.740
years. And their income will increase and their
resources like social resources and other life
00:47:22.740 --> 00:47:30.120
experiences will increase but at that time when
they want to go back to have family and children,
00:47:31.320 --> 00:47:42.900
the time has already passed. Okay, so life is
long. I think I really treasure my life experience
00:47:44.280 --> 00:47:54.060
starting at an early age as a gerontologist
because I always see life as a whole process.
00:47:54.720 --> 00:48:04.680
So sometimes it is really true for younger people.
I also suffered great financial difficulty when I
00:48:04.680 --> 00:48:17.520
studied for my masters in the U.S. and later in my
Ph.D. and when I returned back to Taiwan in 1997
00:48:17.520 --> 00:48:28.020
after already 10 years of work in the U.S.,
I still carried a heavy debt. But gradually,
00:48:29.280 --> 00:48:38.580
I waited and waited until the time that I
could acquire my own house, a small apartment
00:48:39.780 --> 00:48:48.000
and now I'm at the age of 59 and I'm
already a grandma. So looking back I think
00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:58.200
the culture, the current culture is different
uh among the Young Generation but I wish if we
00:48:58.200 --> 00:49:06.360
could have more intergenerational dialogue
we could share some of our experiences and
00:49:06.360 --> 00:49:15.180
even all sorts of support to encourage
them and to walk beside them hopefully
00:49:17.880 --> 00:49:25.740
we will see a different culture related to having
family and children but it's their own decisions.
00:49:27.780 --> 00:49:33.600
And we have some questions from
the audience related to the issue
00:49:33.600 --> 00:49:40.920
of fertility rate so could you explain
to us in terms of what factors might
00:49:40.920 --> 00:49:47.100
lead to such a low fertility rate in
Taiwan? For example, like the state
00:49:47.100 --> 00:49:53.280
has to do with does it has something to
do with individual socioeconomic status?
00:49:55.380 --> 00:50:05.100
I would say no because the most wealthy
group of the population in Taiwan has
00:50:05.100 --> 00:50:14.160
not contributed to more children. For a
higher-educated High-income female group,
00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:21.780
we have a very low fertility rate. So
having children, I think, it's still a
00:50:21.780 --> 00:50:33.240
life choice. It's a very individualized
choice so the government policy may not
00:50:33.240 --> 00:50:38.580
be very effective in changing or deciding
for individuals how to live their life.
00:50:39.540 --> 00:50:50.460
Many women, many highly educated and high-income
women now even think about uh freezing their eggs
00:50:51.660 --> 00:51:01.260
when they are still striving in the lab in their
career. And they wanted to wait until they are
00:51:01.260 --> 00:51:10.500
ready then they can start okay and our government
is even thinking about subsidizing the price the
00:51:10.500 --> 00:51:19.020
cost of freezing their ex, yeah but that's a
highly controversial policy as you can imagine.
00:51:21.240 --> 00:51:28.020
And Dr. Yang, so one question would like
to place Taiwan in a comparative sense.
00:51:28.020 --> 00:51:33.600
So what other Asian country is the
most similar to Taiwan and what have
00:51:33.600 --> 00:51:37.800
we learned from such countries that
are also facing an aging population?
00:51:40.020 --> 00:51:40.560
I think
00:51:44.640 --> 00:51:50.520
South Korea. We often call Taiwan
and South Korea the brothers states
00:51:53.100 --> 00:52:03.540
because we are very similar in our past history
of Economic Development and population development
00:52:03.540 --> 00:52:14.220
and our age-population ratio is very close
right now. Okay, and the lowest status is so
00:52:14.220 --> 00:52:21.540
very similar sometimes they are the world's number
one law, and something like last year Taiwan was
00:52:21.540 --> 00:52:32.340
the lowest low. So we are very similar but South
Korea has used the social insurance scheme for
00:52:32.340 --> 00:52:44.520
their long-term care but Taiwan even though in the
planning stage Thailand also before 20 before 2008
00:52:44.520 --> 00:52:50.820
we were also on the track of developing long-term
care insurance, that's a social insurance scheme,
00:52:50.820 --> 00:52:58.740
but we chose not to go that route because
our government believed that the supply
00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:07.560
for long-term care especially the labor force
issue was not ready for a social insurance scheme.
00:53:07.560 --> 00:53:18.420
Okay so right now we use the government-subsidized
plan of long-term care 2.0 but the fact is
00:53:20.340 --> 00:53:28.800
we still rely heavily on family support and
family caregivers. So I think that something
00:53:29.940 --> 00:53:38.760
very unique in Taiwan is that our support system
for family caregivers is getting stronger and
00:53:38.760 --> 00:53:47.820
stronger and our association of Taiwan Family
Support Association has Global recognition.
00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:58.560
With this regard, I think that's something. I
think that's one of our greatest strengths to
00:53:58.560 --> 00:54:05.100
support our family givers and it's also our
culture as I mentioned 97% of the current
00:54:05.880 --> 00:54:12.240
older people still live with their children
and still have children. So their children
00:54:14.460 --> 00:54:20.580
really take great responsibility too. It's
not just a responsibility but it's our
00:54:22.620 --> 00:54:31.500
love to our aging and aged parents. For example,
in the past few years, my mother passed away in
00:54:31.500 --> 00:54:37.980
five years. Five years ago my father, four years
ago my mother-in-law three years ago, and looking
00:54:37.980 --> 00:54:47.520
back I really feel very comforted that I spend a
lot of time in an effort trying to be with them,
00:54:47.520 --> 00:54:56.760
not sometimes we couldn't care enough for them.
Even though we had a really difficult time while
00:54:56.760 --> 00:55:08.820
I had three aged parents under my care but looking
back now, I feel I have done what I should and I
00:55:08.820 --> 00:55:17.880
feel really comforted. And I think a lot of my
friends share such experiences and for those
00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:26.160
people who really are still suffering for their
care duties we try our utmost best to support
00:55:26.160 --> 00:55:33.420
them. We have established family caregiver support
centers in the community and we have all kinds
00:55:33.420 --> 00:55:43.140
of class activities. The only thing that we have
done short of is to give them financial subsidies
00:55:44.220 --> 00:55:53.460
but other than real money we try everything
that we can to support families' caregivers
00:55:53.460 --> 00:55:58.200
because we understand they are the
key to our long-term care system.
00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:06.420
Okay, yeah thank you Dr Yan for these
professional insights. We have some
00:56:06.420 --> 00:56:12.720
questions related to labor shortage
and migration. So in terms of Taiwan
00:56:12.720 --> 00:56:19.380
as a super-age society have you noticed any
trains in terms of young Taiwanese working
00:56:19.380 --> 00:56:27.060
professionals moving overseas to work and
how does this contribute to the Aging trend?
00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:35.460
I think most young people in Taiwan,
they remain. Okay, we only have
00:56:38.220 --> 00:56:46.860
I think the young generation really treasure
the freedom and the lifestyle in Taiwan. Okay
00:56:46.860 --> 00:56:55.560
sometimes even though our income level is a little
low but compared to our living cost and all the
00:56:55.560 --> 00:57:04.800
family support and social support system I think
for example we have fewer and fewer graduates
00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:12.060
from National Taiwan University to go abroad
compared to my time. A lot of graduates from
00:57:12.060 --> 00:57:19.920
National Taiwan University at my time went abroad
for further study but now they try to get into the
00:57:19.920 --> 00:57:31.740
labor market earlier and establish their own life
earlier in life okay so I think the culture uh in
00:57:31.740 --> 00:57:43.200
the Young Generation is very realistic, I should
say. Okay, so we see it's just a small percentage
00:57:43.200 --> 00:57:53.040
of people working abroad, actually. I have one
Ph.D. student currently who just finished 12 years
00:57:53.040 --> 00:58:00.540
of working in Singapore and came back uh because
they wanted their children to grow up in Taiwan.
00:58:02.880 --> 00:58:05.340
Thank you, Dr Yan. And uh we have
00:58:06.540 --> 00:58:14.820
two more questions and the first one has to
do with the culture in Taiwan. So a lot of
00:58:14.820 --> 00:58:21.720
your presentation focuses on the role of the
family and it would be considered as part of
00:58:21.720 --> 00:58:29.280
the confusion though we are curious whether
it is still so important today in Taiwanese
00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:37.500
society? And the second question has to do with
how could you define fertility in your research?
00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:44.820
How to identify fertility in my research? The
00:58:44.820 --> 00:58:51.480
fertility rate is... we have a clear
Global definition for fertility
00:58:52.620 --> 00:58:58.200
so I'm not quite sure about that question
but I'll answer the previous question first.
00:58:59.940 --> 00:59:06.540
People often talk about Asian cultures, and
Confucian culture but actually, Confucianism is
00:59:06.540 --> 00:59:20.940
only one philosophical School in Asia. We also
have Buddhism. we have Taoism and we have not
00:59:20.940 --> 00:59:36.720
only Asian but we also have Western religions that
also support family and having children. Okay for
00:59:36.720 --> 00:59:48.840
example, in Buddhism people believe that no matter
what relationship we are in it's because we have
00:59:50.820 --> 00:59:58.440
like we have a destined relationship with
our parents with our children so we'd like
00:59:58.440 --> 01:00:07.140
to nurture such relations. So it's not just
for Confucianism I believe but we have other
01:00:07.140 --> 01:00:14.520
sorts of philosophies that all together
support a harmonious society in Taiwan.
01:00:15.060 --> 01:00:24.480
Okay so that's why we do not only feel obligated
to care for our parents but we may feel for
01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:36.300
example I'm Catholic and also love Buddhism
a lot I often hear the teaching of Buddhist
01:00:38.520 --> 01:00:46.740
schools so I would believe that all these
philosophies support my love towards my
01:00:47.580 --> 01:00:58.740
age the parents as well as my two daughters
and now my granddaughter. So uh it's a holistic
01:01:00.360 --> 01:01:10.680
culture of such relationships and I think
that's still very common in Taiwan. Okay
01:01:10.680 --> 01:01:17.580
even in the very young generation as we can
see they go to churches, they go to Temples,
01:01:18.480 --> 01:01:23.760
we just finished the Chinese New Year
from the first day to the 15th day,
01:01:23.760 --> 01:01:31.500
right and we see on the news that many young
people go to temples to worship and to make
01:01:31.500 --> 01:01:38.580
the good wishes for a new year and then to
wish good wishes for their family and friends.
01:01:40.500 --> 01:01:48.780
And please allow me to post one last question.
One of our audience finds your introduction of
01:01:49.320 --> 01:01:57.480
lifespan planning very interesting so could you
give us a bit more detail on how that works the
01:01:57.480 --> 01:02:04.440
middle age cohort seems to be sandwiched
between the yarn and old how do they fare
01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:11.040
when under such dual pressure? Any policy to
support those who are in a middle-aged cohort?
01:02:11.040 --> 01:02:19.980
Thank you, okay, in gerontology we use
the perspective called a life course which
01:02:19.980 --> 01:02:28.200
means from birth, from a cradle to grave right
it's a complete process and we need to really
01:02:31.320 --> 01:02:45.420
take this in. So when we were, for example, when
we are in early adulthood the highest priority
01:02:45.420 --> 01:02:52.680
may be just thinking about how to graduate, how
to start our career, how to start our family,
01:02:52.680 --> 01:03:04.080
Etc. But you also have to think like 50 years
later. So if we consider the whole life process,
01:03:04.080 --> 01:03:11.940
I think that's easier to make a life plan. For
example, I would ask my student to Think Through
01:03:13.860 --> 01:03:22.980
what family and children mean to them. Okay if
they really whether they are really whether they
01:03:22.980 --> 01:03:31.800
really do not want or like family and children or
they are just having some difficulties financially
01:03:31.800 --> 01:03:41.700
or career-wise or support-wise. So these two are
different because you have for example if they
01:03:42.300 --> 01:03:48.360
still like to have family and children but
they are concerned they have many concerns,
01:03:48.360 --> 01:03:57.840
then we can use our social policy, National
policy, or personal support to do our best
01:03:57.840 --> 01:04:05.820
to make them less concerned. For example,
now we have social housing more and more
01:04:05.820 --> 01:04:16.260
social housing we have subsidized brain
housing and I think some Asian countries
01:04:16.260 --> 01:04:28.380
have recently just started to give all people a
basic income of maybe 50 50 40 to 50 NT dollars.
01:04:29.220 --> 01:04:37.020
So I think we the Asian countries have been tried
experimenting with a lot of very Innovative social
01:04:37.020 --> 01:04:44.940
policies trying to boost the fertility rate.
Okay, I think the most important thing is we
01:04:44.940 --> 01:04:54.960
want to show all the people, The Young and the
old in Taiwan that we are all together and we are
01:04:54.960 --> 01:05:03.300
facing our future together. No matter what we have
experienced we will hot hands and go through it.
01:05:10.020 --> 01:05:16.980
As the moderator and organizer of today's event,
I would like to show my sincere gratitude to Dr.
01:05:16.980 --> 01:05:23.160
Yan for her fascinating presentation and responses
in the Q&A. We thank all participants for a great
01:05:23.160 --> 01:05:28.560
discussion. For our center's upcoming events,
we invite you to subscribe to our Center's
01:05:28.560 --> 01:05:34.200
email list to learn more about UCLA Asia Pacific
Center's future activities over the past year
01:05:34.200 --> 01:05:39.960
announced. Good evening and good morning again
we hope to see you at our future events. Thank
01:05:39.960 --> 01:05:47.880
you and please take care. Thank you, thank you
Dr. Dai. Thank you UCLA Asian Pacific Center.
01:05:47.880 --> 01:05:55.500
Thank all the audience. Thank you, bye bye, thank
you, thank you, Professor Yan, yeah thank you.